You
may ask yourself...How does a normal, healthy therapeutic relationship shift
into a powerimbalance that results in sexual abuse?

3 Ethics Factors Contributing to the Outcome of Sexual Contact
Various factors
contribute to the outcome of sexual contact. These factors can be identified in
both the victim and the abusive mental health professional, as well as in the
situation itself, which may facilitate the emergence of an abusive relationship.
Using Mary's accounts and the professional literature, we will examine the following
overlapping concepts: 1. Reframing the relationship2. Boundary violations 3. Pope's description of ten common scenarios.
This will be followed by a
consideration of situational factors, and finally, of special issues for victims
of childhood abuse.

In
the literature, like other survivors, therapy survivors like Mary frequently experienced
a similar kind of manipulation for sex. The abusive professional would gradually
reframe or reinterpret his client's childlike dependency on a parental figure.
In the course of this reinterpretation, the parent or parental figure would become
a romantic or sexual partner.

In
her book "Betrayal," Julie Roy describes her therapist teasing her about
having a "bathtub party" and making frequent inquiries about her sexual fantasies about him. Later, he suggests that they have sex, claiming that this
will remove her fear of men and cure her of being a lesbian. Initially she refuses,
telling her therapist, "I feel I would be destroyed. In the end it would
be bad for me."

The therapist insists that she needs to love him, so that
she can learn to love men. Over the course of the next few months, he progresses
from touching her, kissing her and caressingher. Over the three years that she
saw her abusive therapist, when he returned from conference trips, he would bring
her coins, records, trinkets, and other gifts. He also invited her to go to a
conference with him.

Ethics - 7 Key Explotative Behaviors
Looking
at boundary violations from the professional's perspective, Epstein and Simon
developed an "exploitation index" for therapists. They describe the
following exploitative behaviors:1. Seeking a diversion from treatment: The therapist initiates social contact with patients.2. Erotic: The
therapist relishes romantic daydreams about patients.3. Exhibitionistic: The therapist seeks out clientele who are famous or VIP.4. Dependent: Talking about one's own difficulties.5. Power seeking: Requesting personal
favors from patients. 6. Greedy: Accepting large gifts.7. Enabling: Failing to set limits because of apprehension about the patient's disappointment
or anger.